Last week I had a client tell me about a child living in filth with a nasty case of lice. I had to report to CPS. Last night I was awakened by a hideous dream in which my little Pearl, (now 20) was in denial about a terrible case of lice. I spent a few hours surfing the net and discovering what dreams about lice signify. (loss of control in social situations).
Then I discovered the How-to-avoid-lice-on-your-children sites. One enthusiastic blogger-mommy encouraged her readers to teach their children to avoid the "dirty kids" in order to avoid vermin.
When I was a child I got lice. I WAS the dirty kid. I also lived in a third world country for several months with my missionary parents. I brought it home to Delta, Utah and infested my second grade classroom. It was lousy. literally. Yet I would not give up that time in Guatemala and the lessons I learned for anything. Please don't encourage your children to avoid the "dirty kids". Isolating them is not only encouraging cruelty, it can be incredibly damaging to their self images. So what if your children get lice. It won't kill them and perhaps it will give them some empathy for those who don't have it as good as they do.
Shelly Brown once asked to borrow my brush. I told her "no" and told her why. Several years later (we were seniors), we were in the locker room after our cheer/dance class and she asked again. I said, "sure" and handed her my brush. She reminded me of not letting her use my brush in second grade. She thought I was lying about lice. I reminded her of the summer our family spent in Guatemala and told her I really did have lice.
But I also had a much broader perspective of the world than most of my school chums. What a blessing vermin can be.
3 comments:
So YOU were the culprit!!!! LOL
My mother didn't tell us to avoid "dirty children" but we were taught that we were not to share brushes and combs with a.n.y.o.n.e. To this day I can't do it!!
Glad to see you blogging again.
I agree! I hate hearing that, and 'you should only have mormon friends'. How are all the rest of 'us' going to learn anything, if we can't even be friends. I knew people growing up, when I was not a member, who couldn't be my friend. They made it so I didn't even want to have anything to do with the church.
We can all be friends. We can all get a long, we just don't share brushes and combs, and are careful where we hangout together.
whenever I talk, write or even think about lice, my head starts to itch. We're talking serious itch. My brain remembers how bad it was. Vermin is horrible. But boy do I have empathy for kids who get it. Trust me...it grosses me out!
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